We were talking, Dad and I, the only people in a moderately-sized, well-lit, white-walled room, both seated at a small square table. We weren\u2019t opposite each other; rather, on two neighbouring sides. He was dressed quite neatly: a business suit and tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He slid a small hardback black book without a dust jacket over towards me, a slight smile on his face. \u201cTake a look at this\u201d he said. It had the name \u201cJ.R.R. Tolkien\u201d on the side in fancy gold script, and the title was something I\u2019d never heard of before: \u201dHobbit Tales\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apparently it had only ever had a small print run; he opened it and showed a few typical pages – short stories for young children, with illustrations at the start of each tale. He said he\u2019d recently found it in a second-hand bookshop, and bought it for a few pounds out of curiosity, without realising how rare it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He asked me to guess what the book was worth and after a bit of back-and-forth, I gave up: \u201cTell me, Dad. What\u2019s the market price?\u201d It turned out that there wasn\u2019t one – you couldn\u2019t find the book on sale anywhere nowadays, although it had been available at one point, not so long ago, relatively cheaply. But nowadays it was, I suppose, literally priceless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was wondering why I was so glad to see him, and why I was enjoying this conversation so much; and then I realised: it was because Dad was dead, had been dead for nearly a year, and I had thought that I was never going to see him again. I told him I loved him, and he acknowledged with a smile; then I felt such a deep sadness, and darkness swallowed everything up – and all of a sudden I was wide awake in bed and it was the middle of the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday 21 March, 2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We were talking, Dad and I, the only people in a moderately-sized, well-lit, white-walled room, both seated at a small square table. We weren\u2019t opposite each other; rather, on two neighbouring sides. He was dressed quite neatly: a business suit and tie. He slid a small hardback black book without a dust jacket over towards … <\/p>\n